Over the past few months, Internet marketing has come to assume an increasingly important role in the marketplace. Indeed, market shifts and trends which formally took years to effect significant change, under the influence of electronic marketing, have taken commercial procedures in weeks to changes which formally took years to achieve. However, the paradigm of Internet marketing in particular, and electronic marketing generally, has failed to achieve the hoped-for profitability. Nonetheless, compared to the press, radio and most recently television, the Internet (trademark) has implemented changes breathtakingly remarkable, both in terms of the magnitude of those changes and the speed with which the same have been achieved.
Perhaps, a major part of the problem is the failure of electronic marketing schemes to depart from prior art marketing paradigms and develop sales implementation mechanisms which overcome the disadvantages of electronic commerce by providing communication interfaces, modalities and functions which combat the personality, uncertainty, consumer fear, unfamiliarity and other associated problems of the electronic marketplace.
For example, one of the primary fears in electronic commercial transactions experienced by the consumer is that an error will be made. This is particularly serious because of the fact that computers are known too often “crash”. Sometimes, in accordance with the invention, it has been discovered that consumers are hesitant to explore a commercial website in the electronic marketplace, on account of the fact that it is also feared that exploration may cause a charge to be made improperly.
Still another problem, addressed in accordance with the present invention, is the failure of electronic commerce systems to take advantage of potential marketing links. While, of course, the use of hypertext links in website associated with electronic commerce applications is well known, whereby one retailer may provide a gateway through which consumers may be directed from one electronic site to another, other than the happenstance of the hypertext link, there is little incentive for the consumer to move from one site to another, except, perhaps, for curiosity or idleness.
In accordance with the present invention, these needs are addressed. At the same time, costs associated with advertising for the website operator and others are reduced. In addition, significant consumer benefits are achieved. Such benefits are achieved by making the site substantially self-contained, in a commercial sense. In this respect, the inventive system departs from prior art systems to the extent that it does not, per se, rely upon hypertext links to other sites in order to achieve market extension cost reduction modalities.